


Oral Traditions

by leiascully



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Cunnilingus, F/M, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-05
Updated: 2017-01-05
Packaged: 2018-09-28 14:03:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10111856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/pseuds/leiascully
Summary: Cunnilingus is the traditional gift for the new millennium.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: post-"Millennium"  
> A/N: For the anon who needed to know.  
> Disclaimer: _The X-Files_ and all related characters are the property of Chris Carter, 1013 Productions, and Fox Studios. No profit is made from this work and no infringement is intended.

She stays over at Mulder’s place, ostensibly to make sure that he’s all right. It isn’t easy to navigate an arm in a sling, despite the practice she’s already given him. Realistically, she just can’t bring herself to leave him with his disheveled hair and his weary eyes. It’s been a long few days and all she wants to do is wrap herself in the blanket that smells like him on the couch that bears the imprint of his body. Her neck is sore and she’s tired to her bones. It might not technically be the new millennium, but it’s some sort of turning point. She wants to spend it with him, even if she’s drifting off to sleep in the hollow worn by his hip instead of in his temporarily incapacitated arms. 

He’s muzzy from the painkillers as she helps him change out of his clothes, which are creased with dirt from the cellar. He sits quietly as she sponges him off with a damp washcloth, gazing at her with half-lidded eyes. She avoids his gaze. His eyes are too dizzying after the day they’ve had; his attention warms her more than a shot of whiskey and she’s susceptible to that slow burn at times like this, when his apartment feels like a sanctuary and their existence a victory. When she leans down, her hair catches in the stubble on his cheek. He brushes it back gently with his good hand and she nearly leans down and kisses him. But there’s no countdown now, and the lights are low: it would mean something else entirely to kiss him in the dim of his bedroom, something she couldn’t ascribe to external factors. In the glare of the hospital hallway as everyone on the East Coast mumbled through Auld Lang Syne, she could pretend the gentle pressure of his lips meant no more than happy holidays. 

“Get some sleep,” she says, and he murmurs and lies down. She helps him pull up the covers. 

“We can share,” he says into the pillow. “We did in Kansas, after that cow crash.” 

“I’ll be fine,” she tells him. “It wouldn’t be good for your arm.”

“I’m willing to go against medical advice on this one,” he says, but he’s already closing his eyes. She takes the washcloth back into the bathroom and hangs it on the bar, looking longingly at the shower. For a moment, she considers borrowing a shirt and shorts from his drawer, but his clothes are laughably big on her, and she wasn’t the one rolling around in the dirt. Instead, she smooths his hair one last time and closes the door behind her on her way to the living room. She strips out of her pants and takes her bra off under her shirt, only after making sure the curtains are pulled shut across the window. She’s been shot at through that window, and spent her last hopes taping X’s on it, and watched snow fall past it on Christmas morning. When she thinks about the history of their apartments, it seems impossible that she still finds comfort either place, but every time she opens his door, it’s like wrapping herself up in a favorite sweater. She pulls the blanket off the back of the couch and wraps herself up in it. The wool is gently abrasive against her bare legs as she lies down. The aquarium bubbles at her head. 

Her dreams are watery, filled with gentle green light. She and Mulder are swimming in a warm ocean. She remembers that psychologists have said that water dreams are about sex; her dream self blushes and dream Mulder smiles knowingly at her. “It’s all right,” he says. “We’re in this together.” He takes her hand and they swim deeper, trailing air bubbles, into a wreck that reminds her of the ruins of a cathedral. They drift into an alcove between the ribs of the ship and in the shadows, she kisses him, floating level so that no one has to stretch. Their arms twine around each other like seaweed; fish brush past them. They melt into each other.

A touch against her toes wakes her. She sits up, reaching automatically for her weapon, but it’s only Mulder, sitting on the floor between the couch and the coffee table. The light from the aquarium gives his bare chest a patina of verdigris. 

“Dreaming?” he asks.

She sits up, pushing her hair out of her face, bracketing Mulder with her knees. She’s come up too fast out of the depths of slumber, like a diver with the bends. “Yeah,” she says finally. “I guess I was.”

“I wasn’t sure if those were noises of distress or not,” he says.

“I’m fine,” she tells him. “What are you doing up?”

“Pills wore off,” he says. “Plus I had to pee.” 

“How’s the arm?” she asks.

“I’m fine,” he tells her, the corner of his lip tugging up. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Just a dream,” she says. 

“What kind of dream?” he asks, trailing a fingertip over her bare toes.

“The regular kind,” she says, avoiding his eyes. 

“Hmm,” he says, wrapping his fingers around her ankle. “How regular?”

It’s clear that he knows, if not the substance of her dream, certainly the gist. She wonders if she moaned his name in her sleep. Something about the level warmth in his gaze and the way the room closes in around them makes her bold. “Often enough,” she says. 

He tugs gently at her ankle and she moves forward on the couch. The blanket falls away. “Scully,” he says, and lowers his lips to brush her knee as his eyes hold hers.

“Yes,” she says, as if he asked a question.

“I’m not sure we finished ringing in the millennium,” he says.

“It’s not the millennium,” she tells him, but he ignores her. 

“I’ve heard the traditional gift for the third millennium is cunnilingus,” he says, and now she’s certainly blushing.

“I can’t even address the inaccuracies in that statement,” she says. “And I seriously doubt there’s a list of millennium gifts like there is for anniversary gifts.”

“Why risk it?” he asks, his lips against the inside of her thigh just above her knee. “You don’t want to start the year 2000 out wrong.”

“You make a compelling point,” she says, because there’s something safe about the couch and the dark and the moment that she can’t articulate. Maybe it’s that she knows he already knows that she wants him. Maybe the kiss in the hospital broke down the last of her flimsy barriers. Maybe it’s the dream-memory of floating together on equal footing. Maybe it’s the warmth of his lips and god, how long it’s been since anyone offered her anything like this.

“Out with the old,” he says. “In with the nude.”

“Mulder,” she groans.

“I liked it better the way you said it a minute ago,” he tells her.

“I guess you’ve got a goal to meet, then,” she says, and hooks her thumbs into her underwear, wriggling out of them under the corner of the blanket that still covers her. Mulder slides his good arm around her hips and brings her closer, kissing his way up her inner thigh. His stubble scratches faintly at her skin in a way that makes her tingle all over. He lets his fingers brush her folds; she bites her lip and nods and he parts them, a little murmur escaping him as he finds the slickness of her with his fingertips.

“It was a good dream,” she says in response to the question he hasn’t asked.

“So I gather,” he says, sliding his wet fingers up and down until she’s slippery with her own moisture. 

“If you’re going to give me this traditional gift, Mulder, stop stalling.” Her stomach tenses as he grazes her clit. 

“You sure?” he asks.

“For auld lang syne,” she says, and leans back into the couch as he nuzzles at her curls.

Mulder’s tongue is incredible. She’s always known that: he’s talked his way out of a thousand impossible situations, and his dexterity at shelling a sunflower seed is unparalleled. She’s fairly certain he can tie a cherry stem with his tongue. He’s unraveling her at an unimaginable rate, that’s certain. The tip of his tongue finds her clit with unerring precision, flicking and darting between her folds. He grunts appreciatively as her hips rise against his face. 

“God, yes,” he says, and lets his tongue push into her.

She gasps. “I think that’s my line.”

“I’ll settle for hearing you say my name again,” he tells her, lifting his head and licking his lips before his face dips again between her legs and his tongue, oh god, his tongue is finding every spot she’s ever found herself and a few she didn’t know about. She’s pressed into the couch, her legs splayed wide, feeling reckless and wild. She delights in every sound he makes as he explores the folds and depths of her cunt. His tongue swirls over her clit and then pushes into her and then he’s back to her clit, sucking gently at first and then harder. She tries not to grip his shoulders with her knees as her hips jerk. He’s deft and he’s dedicated; it’s clear he’s relishing every second. She can feel the muscles in her thighs tensing and she almost regrets that she’s coming already. It’s been so long, so fucking long, since someone enjoyed her the way that Mulder does. When his arm is healed, she thinks, they’ll do this again (if not sooner), and she’ll let him spend hours teasing her, tempting her, wringing pleasure out of her until she’s bonelessly limp and sprawled across his bed. Now the muscles tighten in sequence up her legs, down her belly to the center of her, the center of everything, where Mulder has claimed his rightful position. 

“Mulder,” she says, “God, yes, Mulder, I’m coming.”

His only response is to swirl his tongue even more firmly over her clit. She comes apart like a cloud of bubbles underwater, rising and rising, each nerve firing in a glint of light. Mulder holds her firmly with his free arm as her hips buck. He draws back to kiss the inside of her thigh and she shivers, both at the touch and at the loss of the pressure of his mouth. She draws the blanket over her lap and reaches for him, tugging him up onto the couch beside her.

“You’re very good at gifts,” she says.

“Too bad we won’t be around for the next millennium,” he says.

“Is it only cunnilingus for the millennium,” she muses aloud, “or oral sex in general?”

“I hear the real millennium is next year,” he tells her, “so we have a little while to figure that out.”

“Good,” she says.

“I think I owe you a few dates,” Mulder says. 

“I don’t need this to be traditional,” she tells him, her head on his good shoulder. “We don’t have to go on dates.”

“What if I want to go on dates with you?” he asks.

“We’ll figure that out too,” she says. “And you can give me the same gift for every occasion.”

“Glad to hear it,” he says, and pulls her close.


End file.
